Journal: Goodbye, Dear Sister

 

Last Monday, Victoria posted a video clip on Instagram of herself singing May the Lord Find Us Faithful, and accompanying herself on the piano.  It was so beautiful, I begged her to send it to me, which she did.  If you’d like to hear it, I’ve put it on my blog, here.

A distant cousin, upon seeing last week’s pictures of the bumblebees on Autumn Joy sedum, advised, “You probably don’t want to get too close to those bumblebees!”

I assured her, “The bees aren’t aggressive at all.  The flowers all alongside the front walk are covered with them, and we walk right along there often, sometimes brushing against the flowers that have grown so big.  The bees just reposition themselves and get back to the nectar.  I’m a little more leery about the various varieties of wasps we have around here; but I’ve never been stung.  Those little bee-flies leave us alone, too; but there are some small flies that can bite somethin’ fierce.”

But no, we don’t fear the Flying Pandas – not even this one, who’s holding up both front legs in an effort to look bigger and scarier to ward off the Gray Looper moth who’s encroaching upon his nectar territory.

By noon on Tuesday, it was 79°, on the way up to 88°.  The neighbors’ sleek black kitty was in our yard, probably on a B&B Raid – aka a Bird ’n Bunny Hunt.

I walked out on the porch; that always makes him run.  If he’s just strolling innocently down the sidewalk, he’ll usually come up on the porch to see if I have a tidbit for him.  If he’s tracking birds or bunnies, he runs if I come out.  You’d think cats have consciences!  heh

For supper that evening, I broiled hamburgers, which we had on toasted pretzel buns with Romaine lettuce, Victoria’s homemade pickles, jalapeño habanero cheese, tomatoes, ketchup, mustard, relish, and Mayonnaise.  Not quite a Dagwood burger, but close!  To be a Dagwood burger, it would’ve also needed onions and bacon, at the very least.

Good thing we weren’t out in public — those hamburgers had so much stuff on them, they were slippery!  Sometimes we have to eat them with knife and fork.  😅

We had orange juice to drink – Tropicana, not from concentrate, 100% juice and nothing else, with pulp.

There were thunderstorms in western Nebraska, traveling our way.  They hit in the middle of the night, but not with the hail and wind that had been forecast.  McCook, 215 miles to our southwest,  got large hail – and a lot of broken windshields.

9:00 p.m. found me still quilting, with only one more row to do.  Each row took about 50 minutes.

Victoria wrote to ask, “Is the grain of fabric stretchy?”

Before I noticed her text, she wrote again.  “Google says the stretch is against the grain.  I couldn’t remember.”

“Google is correct,” I told her.  “The grain goes parallel to the selvage.”

“Most of my bits and pieces no longer have the selvage,” she said.

“I often had such scant bits and pieces, the grain had no say-so in the matter,” I commiserated.  “Fortunately, kids’ clothes are small enough, it didn’t matter so much if I had to cut some piece whoppyjaw.  Now, if you’re making yourself a skirt, then the grain definitely matters.”

Turned out, it wouldn’t matter a whole lot for Victoria’s project; she was making a doll with clothes.  “This is a teeeeeny doll,” she said.  “Will it matter much that I cut the body out in the wrong direction?”

“Nope,” I assured her.

One of her older sisters once made herself a dress of nice taffeta moiré – and cut one bodice back running up and down as it should be, and the other sideways.  Moiré is that stuff that has a wood grain look to it.  She already had the skirt on and the zipper in it by the time I noticed.

This, because she was cutting everything out one thickness at a time for some unfathomable reason.  She also wound up with two left sleeves, but they were full enough that nobody noticed (unless they wondered why every time she wore that dress she went around with one arm behind her back like a cavalry general, as those sleeves just had to feel...  wrong).

I took pity on her and redid the back and the zipper.  There was no redoing the backwards sleeve, for there was no more fabric.

By 11:30 p.m., the quilting was done on Ethan’s Ducks Unlimited quilt, and I had cut it from the frame.  I took a couple of pictures and posted them online.

A friend (whose profile picture shows only the back of her head, because it’s sporting a pretty new haircut) wrote a nice compliment under the pictures – and then some idget scammer wrote this to her:  “Wow to write you on your comment box, my little daughter ask me too say hi, if you will respond, she said you look just like her mom, she talked about your Smile she also said, You has a beautiful smile just like mom, dad let’s say hi if you will respond, because Mom never hesitate to responds and if you don’t mind can you send me a friend request and messages.”

The English King will be a-lookin’ for someone to execute, after reading that.  But... how does this blithering idiot know she has a ‘beautiful smile’, when all he can see is the back of her head??  And if a bot wrote that, then that bot needs a serious updating.

>>...pondering...<<  It’s not a bot.  “Wow to write you on your comment box.”  Bots aren’t that stupid.  Are they??

Wednesday, I machine-embroidered the label for Ethan’s quilt, finishing in the nick of time before our church service that evening.  As my machine embroidered away, I watched a few quilting videos and tutorials.  And whataya know, I saw a video of the exceptionally skilled quilter and teacher Julie Quiltoff doing those same little backstitches and stitching in place that I do before and after a quilting motif, and then clipping her threads – without threading them into a needle, knotting them, and burying them! 

So ha.  Now will you believe me when I say you don’t have to ‘bury’ your threads?

It rained a bit more that afternoon, but stopped momentarily when it was time to head off to our midweek service.  Those flowers along the front walk dripped raindrops all over our pantlegs or skirt and our shoes as we walked out to the Mercedes.

When we got home, we had a light supper of chicken on Artisanal sourdough bread, cottage cheese with Romaine lettuce, and red candy grapes for dessert.  Best grapes ever.

Thursday, September 18^th, was National Rice Krispies Treats Day.  As usual, I looked for a quilt the previous night to go along with the day, to post on my Quilt Talk group.

I found a quilt called ‘Rice Krispies Treats’, but I couldn’t find any information about it at all (who designed it, pieced it, or quilted it), and the harder I tried, the more recipes for Rice Krispies Treats I found.  

By the time I gave up, I was starving to death for Rice Krispies Bars, and there were none to be had in this house – nary the treat nor the ingredients!

A revoltin’ development, I’m a-tellin’ ya.

Late Thursday morning, it was 68°, on the way up to 73°, and it would be raining again soon.  While the sun peeked through, the little Eastern tailed blue butterflies came out to dry their wings.

Below is the other side of the Eastern tailed blue’s wings.  (Photo by Bernie Kasper.)  It’s hard to get pictures of tailed blues with their wings open!

They usually have their wings closed, and they rub their hind wings back and forth, so that those orange and black spots look like big eyes looking this way and that, and their tails look like antenna, making the birds that prey on them think they are much bigger than they really are.

Since I would be wanting to take pictures of the Ducks Unlimited quilt soon, I texted Larry before he got off work:  “Do you think you could get me the sand for those sandbags for my quilt-photo frame?”

He agreed – and got pea gravel.  In fact, he got two 50-pound bags of pea gravel.  That’s 100 pounds of pea gravel.  

hahaha

I won’t be able to budge it; but then, neither will the wind!

I wonder how many pounds most photographic tripod sandbags usually weigh?  Hmmm...  Mr. Google recommends 5 to 35 pounds.  Well, that’s definitive.

He (Larry, that is, not Mr. Google) left the pea gravel in the BMW when he got home because it was raining – and there it would stay until Saturday afternoon, after I’d already taken pictures of Ethan’s quilt.

However, would you believe, he (Larry, not Mr. Google) brought home a carton of Rice Krispie bars – chocolate-covered, mind you?!  Really, he did!  (And no, of course he didn’t know it was National Rice Krispies Treats Day.)  These were those yummy ones made with peanut butter instead of marshmallow crème, which, if you ask me, are waaay better.  (You did ask me, didn’t you?)

By suppertime, the label was sewn onto the Ducks Unlimited quilt, and I had attached the binding.

I then measured the central panel of Joanna’s quilt, the one I put together July 30^th while waiting for Emma’s fabric to arrive.  I plugged these measurements into EQ8, and started playing with designs.

The garden scene fabric in the middle and the blue fabric in the outer borders are from Joanna’s late other grandmother Bethany’s stash.  I will call the quilt ‘Jardin de Fleurs’.

Below is the image of the design from EQ8.

It rained again part of the day Friday.  When it quit for a while in midafternoon, I went to our LQS in town and got the background fabric I needed for Joanna’s quilt.  Home again, I began cutting the pieces.

Bethany had a big piece of fabric that coordinated with those blue squares that are printed to look like nine-patches – 6 ½ yards of it; but I need at least 8, maybe 9, for backing for this large quilt.  There will be some of this printed fabric (below) left over; maybe I can add 2+2 and come up with 5!

If not, reckon I could buy a fabric stretcher somewhere?

Good heavens!  A wolf spider big enough to jump a bald eagle just went strolling through my quilting studio, not three feet from where I was standing! 

He’s bigger now.  Flatter, but much larger in circumference.

As always, I had no shoes on, so I snatched the plastic lid from the bobbin holder on my winder, and smashed him.

I then had major cleanup on Aisle One.  😝😜😕🙁😖

Two days in a row, Friday and Saturday, both times late in the evening, the electricity blinked off for a couple of seconds, then came back on.  What, are the local squirrels committing suicide in the transformers?

I got three borders and part of the fourth sewn onto the quilt that day.

I did not, however, get pictures of Ethan’s Ducks Unlimited quilt; it was much too wet outside, even when it wasn’t raining, as I cannot put quilts on my new frame without the quilts touching the ground while I’m clamping them onto the overhead bar before raising it.

Saturday dawned bright and sunny.  The high that day would be 75°.  After a shower and a shine-up of the bathroom, I put bed linens into the washing machine.  It’s always nice to climb into a bed made with fresh sheets and blankets.

A little after noon, my nephew Robert, our pastor, texted to tell me that his mother, my sister Lura Kay, had passed away.  While it’s sad to know we will not see her here again, there is also relief in knowing she is no longer suffering, and comfort in knowing we will see our believing loved ones again someday in heaven.  I loved her so much.

I let my children know, and sent some pictures.

Above is a photo of her at age four, taken when Loren had his school pictures taken when he was in first grade.  She trimmed her bangs away to practically nothing the very night before the pictures were to be taken.  Good thing she had naturally curly hair!  It camouflaged the cut bangs quite well. 

My father was in the Navy somewhere around the Philippines when that picture was taken.  Anytime he saw the photo, or the ones of Loren and G.W. that were taken at the same time, he talked about how thrilled he was to receive those pictures from the ship’s mailroom.  When he found photos in his envelopes, he’d run down the corridor waving them over his head and yelling, “I got pictures!  I got pictures!” – and sailors would hurry to gather ’round and look at them, too.

This picture of Lura Kay standing on the sidewalk beside the house was taken at my parents’ and older siblings’ first home here in Columbus.  

This next one was shot on our driveway at the home where I was born in 1960.  Lura Kay is standing next to her 1960 Renault Dauphine.  She made both of her outfits.

Here's a 1960 Renault Dauphine like hers.  Our father had one, too.

Below is Lura Kay with me when I was six weeks old.  

This one was taken at Easter 1962; I was a year and a half.  Lura Kay made my little navy coat with the white collar, along with a matching dress underneath; and of course she made her own dress, too.

As soon as the grass was dry that afternoon, I headed outside with Ethan’s quilt, my new quilt frame, tent stakes, paracord, scissors, and camera.

It took 40 minutes to set up the frame, tie paracord to the stakes, get them properly positioned and into the ground with the cord wrapped around the top bar of the frame, clamp the quilt to the bar, lift it to the correct height, take pictures, and then take everything down and put it all away again.  Quite a lot longer than it takes for pictures of quilts on the deck, but certainly a lot better pictures.  And now I’ll be able to take quilts and gear elsewhere for pictures, should I like.

The pirate bugs were awful out there!  They’re itty-bitty, teeny-tiny things that look like nothing more than a wee black speck on your arm, but wow, their bites are vicious.  They must have serrated knives for mandibles!

There were one or two mosquitoes, too.

I no sooner got everything put away and back in the house than Larry came home with the BMW, bags of pea gravel and all.  As beforementioned, he’d left them in the BMW because it was raining, and then he forgot and kept leaving them there.  The setup might’ve worked better with the sandbags lopped over the tripod legs, but... it worked without them, as the wind was blowing at only 4 mph, with gusts up to 5 mph – practically nothing, for Nebraska.  Anyway, it only started toppling once, and that wasn’t really because of the wind, but because of the uneven ground.  I caught it, and repositioned the stakes to better hold the frame in place.  The ground was soft enough from the recent rains that I didn’t even have to use the handy-dandy hammer.

I managed to fit stakes, cord, and hammer all into the original vinyl frame case.  It’s not too awfully heavy; I should be able to carry it short distances without too much difficulty. 

It was only 73°, but, partly because of those pirate bugs, and partly because there are things to do, people to see, and places to go, I hurried with all my might and main, and by the time I had everything back in the house, I was boiling hot and lightheaded.

A tall mug of cold brew was just the ticket.

Here is a photo of Lura Kay and me at her piano.  

The photo below was taken by her late son David at Christmastime 1992 three and a half months after our father passed away.  I was sewing the outfit I have on the night I received the call telling me he had died.

I took this picture of Lura Kay about 35 years ago.

Here's Ethan’s quilt, Ducks Unlimited.  The quilt measures 100” x 102”.  My daughter-in-law Amy, Ethan’s mother, found the small duck prints at a secondhand store, all on one big sheet of fabric; I cut them apart.  The central panel of mallard ducks was designed by artist Randy McGovern.

I used Quilters’ Dream 80/20 batting, Magnifico 40-wt. thread top and bottom – Cream Puff on top and Venetian Blue in the bobbin.  I designed the quilt in EQ8.  It was quilted on my hand-guided 18” Handi Quilter Avanté.  The pantograph is called ‘Ducks Taking Off’, by Deb Geissler.  The quilt took 79 hours from designing to label.  The label was machine-embroidered on my Bernina Artista 730.

I have five quilts to give to Teddy and Amy’s children for Christmas this year.  Three of the younger boys got theirs last year, and Elsie, the youngest, got hers the year before.

By 10:00 p.m., six more borders were on the Jardin de Fleurs quilt for Joanna.  It now measures 73.5” x 73.5”.  The next border will be 14” wide, pieced and appliquéd.

Somebody ordered an appliqué block from me on Etsy – then sent the following:

”Note for seller:  Only a PDF file is downloaded.  Where are the embroidery files?”

Take a look at my ad:

 

Do you see anywhere where it says ‘embroidery’? 

I’ve had the appliqué blocks for the Buoyant Blossom quilt available on Etsy since... ? 2016, it was.  And this is the first time for this particular question.

Hmmm... looks like she lives here in Bengaluru, Karnataka, southern India:

So maybe there’s a language barrier.  Still, her name is Mary, and her two sentences were in perfect English.  However, the main language in Karnataka is Kannada.  But even if there is a language barrier, if you want to buy an embroidery design, shouldn’t you make sure the word ‘embroidery’ can actually be found somewhere on the ad for the item in question?

I do know that people buy digital things online, then act like they got the wrong item, and ask the seller to give them back their money.  Well, but how can that possibly work?  Can the buyer return the digital file and assure the seller that he no longer has it, and will never, ever use it?  Nope, nope, nope.

But who knows; maybe the lady really did think it was an embroidery file, even though the pictures clearly show appliqué with fabric.  This is why I always answer matter-of-factly, and never say things that would call anyone’s intelligence into question.  ((...pause...))  I just write about them in my journal.  >>...snerk...<<

If she puts up a fuss, I’ll tell her to consider it as a gift she purchased for a friend who likes to appliqué.  No money back.

Can I ever start looking at distant places on Google Maps without going right down the rabbit hole??

Answer:  No.

Look at this home (or is it an apartment building?) just a few blocks away from that other apartment building, this on 1^st Main Road.  I wonder how many people live in that home, and are they all one family?

The city of Bengaluru, India, has a population of 14.4 million, in an area of 286 square miles.  That’s a density of about 50,350 people per square mile.

Los Angeles, by comparison, has a population of about 3.9 million in an area of about 470 square miles.  That’s a population density of about 8,298 people per square mile.

Meanwhile, the population of Columbus, Nebraska, is 25,126, and the population of the entire Platte County is 35,499.  There are approximately 53 people per square mile in the county, spread across a land area of approximately 674 square miles.

The farther west one goes in Nebraska, the less dense the population becomes.  I like that just fine.  I think I’ll stay in Nebraska.

Cherry County, Nebraska, has a population density of approximately 0.92 people per square mile, calculated from its population of 5,431 and a land area of about 5,933 square miles.

Here is my sister’s obituary:

Lura Kay Walker, age 85, went to be with the Lord, Saturday, Sept. 20, 2025, at Brookstone Acres in Columbus, NE.

Funeral services are 2:00 pm Wednesday, September 24 at the Bible Baptist Church in Columbus. Visitation is Tuesday evening from 5-8 pm at the Bible Baptist Church and continues Wednesday from 1:00 pm until service time at the church. Interment is in Roselawn Cemetery

Lura Kay Walker was born on May 17, 1940, in Charleston, Illinois to George D. and Hester (Winings) Swiney. The family moved to Columbus in 1954. Upon graduation from Columbus High School in 1958, Lura Kay was an employee with Dale Electronics until 1967.

Lura Kay married John H. Walker on March 1, 1964, and they were blessed with four children.

She was a faithful member of the Bible Baptist Church, where, in her early years, she played the piano and taught Sunday School for many years.

Lura Kay was principal of Bible Baptist Christian School from 1992 until her retirement in 2019.

She enjoyed reading and was a collector of books and had acquired a tremendous library.

She is survived by one brother, George W. Swiney of Deer Park, Washington; one sister, Sarah Lynn (Larry) Jackson; two sons, Kelvin (Rachel) Walker and Robert (Margaret) Walker; daughter-in-law, Christine Walker and son-in-law, Charles Seadschlag all of Columbus, NE; 20 grandchildren and 55 great grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her parents, her husband, one brother, Loren D. Swiney, son, David B. Walker and daughter, Susan Kay Seadschlag.

There’s a perpetual, rolling thunder sounding this evening, with constant lightning.  There are severe thunderstorms going on around us, but nary a drop of rain has fallen right here.  Not yet, anyway.

A little rain is expected later, and intermittently throughout the rest of the day tomorrow.

Larry took the Mercedes to Walkers’ shop to try to fix the air conditioner, which has been nonworking most of the summer.  He brought it home again unfixed, the mystery unresolved.

Time to get back to work on Joanna’s quilt!

,,,>^..^<,,,          Sarah Lynn          ,,,>^..^<,,,